Good morning. National Australia Bank is cutting 2,500 jobs - 6% of its workforce - by mid-2027, with half gone before Christmas and the rest following by June.
While the bank frames the changes as a drive for efficiency, it won't disclose how its hundreds of millions in yearly AI spending is driving back-office job losses.
Branch staff are safe, the union is appalled, and NAB shares dropped 3.6% as investors decided the $300 million restructuring bill wasn't worth whatever savings might follow.
All the headlines and more below...
BANANA SHORTAGE HITS SUPERMARKETS AS COOL QUEENSLAND WEATHER SLOWS GROWTH
Cool weather in far north Queensland has slowed banana production, leaving Coles, Woolworths and Aldi with sparse displays or very green stock. Almost 9 in 10 Australian households regularly buy bananas, according to produce data company Freshlogic, and demand has held firm even as supply tightened. Major supermarkets rarely charge more than $5 a kilo to avoid putting off shoppers, which has kept demand up when it would normally fall as supply drops.
The timing is hard on lunchboxes. Apple orchards have just finished a poor season after unseasonably hot conditions, and summer stone fruit such as peaches and nectarines has not yet arrived in volume. Australia grows all its own bananas, across northern Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
The Australian Banana Growers' Council said temperatures in the growing regions are starting to rise and the shortage should soon correct itself. Stone fruit prices are expected to drop in the coming weeks as it comes into season.
AUSTRALIAN NEWS
Building material costs rose 3.2% in the year to September 2026, returning to early 2025 levels and further threatening the government’s 1.2 million housing target, which is already 95,000 homes behind schedule. LINK
Australia is exporting tens of millions of litres of biofuels as petrol averages $2.42 per litre and fuel stocks remain far below the 90-day requirement at 41 and 33 days. LINK
The Transport Workers’ Union wants to pause robotaxi rollouts and impose a 95% human driver guarantee, warning driverless vehicles could threaten 64,200 - 85,600 jobs. AFR
The government needs about $11B in savings to plug a widening budget hole as higher bond yields, NDIS delays and reversed welfare cuts drive up borrowing and spending. AFR
SEVEN WEST MEDIA STAFF DESCRIBED A "DIABOLICAL" CULTURE IN A SECRET 2024 REVIEW
A 65-page review of Seven West Media heard allegations that sexism, bullying and harassment were rife, with one staff member saying they saw a manager throw a chair at another employee and another saying people were crying in the office every day. The review was conducted by independent consultancy Interchange and never made public. It interviewed 127 Seven employees and drew on more than 800 survey responses, and was commissioned in 2024.
The company-wide survey found 63% of respondents did not know what Seven West Media's purpose was and 48% said there were psychosocial hazards in the workplace. The review found the company was fixated on rival Channel Nine and that then-chairman Kerry Stokes would call staff to justify dips in ratings. One staff member said "if you lose the ratings, you've got Kerry on your doorstep."
Southern Cross Media bought Seven West Media for $385M in a deal completed in January. The company's new owner says it has since had a "cultural reset".
COMPANY NEWS
Spotify launched a new podcast membership programme in Australia and 33 other markets that lets creators set their own subscription tiers and prices, while Spotify takes a 10% cut. LINK
Stax will relaunch online under new ownership as it offers more than $1.7M in 1-for-1 credits to almost 13,000 customers whose orders never arrived. LINK
Woolworths is expected to post 1Q sales of $19.3B, up 4.7%, outpacing Coles on $11.31B, up 3.1%, as both battle rising costs and cautious shoppers. AUS
White Fox bought an $87M warehouse and distribution hub in Alexandria to expand its Sydney operations as it responds to surging online demand and longer-term redevelopment potential. AUS
Optus accelerated data extraction from legacy Oracle systems to feed its Databricks platform within hours instead of days as it ramps up regulatory, compliance and customer analytics capabilities. LINK
Salesforce agreed to buy Braze for US$8B in cash to add real-time AI customer engagement tools, paying US$47.50 per share, a 58.1% premium. LINK
SG Fleet has agreed to acquire FleetPartners for $1.1B or $5.30 a share after a three-month bidding battle, winning board backing and topping rival ORIX and Sumitomo offers. LINK
Finexia Financial Group placed childcare subsidiary Shared Beginnings into voluntary administration after withdrawing funding following a costly, unsuccessful recovery of defaulted childcare loans totalling about $45M. LINK
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TRIVIA
In Greek mythology, who was the god of dreams?
Answer below
ANSWER
Morpheus
